


Down the Line

by forthemyoui



Series: "좋지?" "응, 좋아" / Our Hands in Her Pocket [7]
Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: AU, Westworld (TV) crossover, Westworld AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 05:46:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14731097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthemyoui/pseuds/forthemyoui
Summary: Sana is a behavioural technician working on the new Shilla World park hosts before the park's opening. Her actions in the recent past catch up to her as she runs through the backstory of a particular host, the daughter of a nobleman in a Shilla World side quest.





	Down the Line

**Author's Note:**

> You might need some understanding of Westworld (the HBO television show) to understand this better.
> 
> And yes, if you have watched Westworld, this is inspired by Elsie and Clementine's brief exchange.

Sana didn’t know what time it was. It was difficult to know what time it was around here. The park ran on a 24-hour day cycle and in the main control room you could see day turn to night and vice versa, but further backstage, fluorescent lighting made day and night look the same. Sana knew it was late, though, because most of her support technicians had left the building.

Sana rounded her subject in the glass-walled room and sat down on the seat in front of her.

“Come back online,” Sana said softly.

The body shop technicians had draped a sheet over the host’s body. When she came online, though, she looked every bit like the character even without a costume. Her eyes fluttered open and her eyelids drooped slightly so that she regained the haughty, blase attitude that had been written into her code.

“Do you know where you are?” Sana asked, watching the zipping bars on her tablet surface.

There was a brief pause.

“I’m in a dream.”

Sana nodded. “Good. Tell me, what do you want most in this world?”

The nobleman’s daughter bit her plump lower lip for a second. Her gaze was directed at the grey, sheeted floor.

“I want to see my mother again,” she said with a gripping desperation and worn tenderness to her tone. “I want to escape the estate and find my mother again, no matter how far away she is.”

Sana nodded once more. They hadn’t exactly created a host for that role at all; it was just a written memory at the moment, but it left open the possibility of a new storyline, an additional side quest for the guests. This cornerstone was buried deep inside the nobleman’s daughter, but the behavioural technicians’ authority dug up things from the deepest of corners inside of the hosts’ brains.

Sana looked up at the host’s face without affection, and then partially loaded one of her main storylines. She was supposed to find a host boy running in her estate’s courtyard, escaping from her father’s guards, and take an interest in him. Of course, this figure could be replaced with any guest that took on the quest that would lead them to attempt robbery in this nobleman’s house.

Sana watched the host’s face assume an expression that could be read as subtle intrigue. She seemed slightly amused, like she had just acquired a new plaything. Sana held the tablet up so she could watch the host react in time to the image sequence forming her immediate experience. Sana began to frown, however, when the image sequence sped up and a small section of the video began to loop. She expanded the video to take up the entire tablet screen and watched in confusion as someone in technician’s garb ran across the courtyard. She swallowed - it was her with the same tablet she was holding in her hands now, striding across the courtyard with a host brain in hand. She had been servicing the nobleman that day.

Sana tried to terminate the image sequence, but nothing would shut it off. At the last millisecond of that loop she saw her own face turning towards the camera, the host’s eye, and looking caught in the headlights for a moment. She had disrupted the backstory production without realising it. And now the host was looping it in her brain. Sana could only observe as the mind’s eye narrowed in on various details, like her garb, her eyes, her lips. Sana’s eyebrows furrowed and she reached for the blinking red button that would shut the host down completely.

But then she reached over with a deeply confused expression on her face and cupped Sana’s cheeks. Sana nearly fell off from her stool from shock. The tablet clattered to the floor. The expression now was more than subtle intrigue. It was interest, curiosity, confusion, irritation, and more, but most of all it was much deeper than superficial interest. It was like the host hadn’t seen anything like Sana before. Sana realised that that was true. She hadn’t seen anything like Sana before in her history of ‘life’.

The tablet was on the floor but the phrases “lose all emotional affect” and “analysis mode” were on the tip of Sana’s tongue. But they wouldn’t leave her mouth. Instead Sana watched the host become more and more aware of her surroundings. Usually the hosts wouldn’t look around the labs. They wouldn’t respond to their state of undress. The host - _no,_ something in Sana said, _say ‘Nayeon’_ \- began to clutch at the white PVC sheet covering her body. She tightened her arms around her own waist and the sheet crinkled loudly in the room.

“Who-” Nayeon began.

“Nayeon,” Sana whispered, unsure if she should move closer; her hands extended themselves of their own accord to steady Nayeon by her knees.

“I know your face,” Nayeon said.

Sana cocked her head to the side. On the floor, the tablet screen was full of grey static. Between the lines some fuzzy pictures emerged. They were of Sana, now, sitting in her seat and performing analysis procedures. _Oh_ , Sana realised, _not now, but from before_. Sana’s outfits changed slightly over the course of the montage of memories. Sana knew something had gone very, very wrong, but she could hardly bring herself to say the words that would bring all of this to an end. If she forced a shutdown now, that command would be logged into the record of commands given to this specific host and an enquiry would have to be made into the status of the host. Sana watched a myriad of expressions fly across Nayeon’s face. She slowly reached down for the tablet, remembering something herself, and hoping to at least put something else on the host’s mind before it could relocate this single memory.

But then there it was. She saw it from Nayeon’s perspective this time, and she looked away, cringing. The memory was played almost in slow motion, with some parts of the image being distorted. Her own face drawing closer, and then-

“We kissed,” Nayeon said, vocalising her thought.

“L-lose all-”

“We _kissed_ ,” Nayeon said, this time with more vigour and what sounded like indignance.

Sana sighed, scratching the back of her neck and setting down the tablet on the floor. “It was one time.”

Nayeon narrowed her eyes, looking straight at Sana. She seemed almost perceptive, perspicacious. “More than that.”

“About… three times,” Sana said.

“Wh- what- whe-” Nayeon began.

Sana clutched the edges of her own white stool. The ‘wh’ questions on the tip of a host’s tongue seemed like nothing good. How and why was it questioning its present reality? How had it retained memories from analysis mode experiences? Why was it so caught up on these specific memories? Sana felt like she had opened the floodgates to something dangerous. Things like pain, or the memory of pain, flickered across Nayeon’s face. Her fingertips moved together as if she was recalling tactile experiences.

Sana lunged forward and gripped Nayeon’s wrists.

“I’m sorry,” Sana said, unsure as to why she said that at all.

Nayeon tried to shake her head and her motions began to stutter. Sana closed her eyes and thought that finally, this was the sign for her to put an end to this instance of malfunction. But then when she opened her eyes again, Nayeon had gotten over that apparent glitch on her own, moving smoothly once more.

“Let’s kiss again,” Nayeon declared.

“No,” Sana whispered, afraid.

“So you can kiss me, but I can’t kiss you?” Nayeon asked, annoyance crossing her features.

“No, look, I’m sorry about-”

“I’m not sorry,” Nayeon interrupted her; it was something hosts didn’t do. “I just want to do it again now.”

Sana sat on her own stool, motionless. For a moment it felt like she was the host, powerless and unable to move from her place unless instructed to do so. Instead of her moving, Nayeon got up from her stool, shaky on her feet at first when she felt the cold floor underneath them, and then paused in front of Sana. She hooked a finger underneath Sana’s chin, just like she was programmed to do with the guest of her trivial romantic interest, and tipped her chin upwards.

At that point, both of them knew, somewhere inside them, that Sana was not going to deny this any further. They knew Nayeon was in control of the situation in this very moment. She was about to experiment with it.

“Can you tell me why you kissed me?” Nayeon asked.

If there was anything Sana knew defined Nayeon’s character, it was concealed vulnerability and a general impatience. The latter was imposing in this moment.

Sana decided to say the first thing that came to mind. “You’re attractive.”

Nayeon looked down at the tablet screen on the floor. She certainly didn’t know what it was, but the fact that she could register it was odd enough.

“I am?” Nayeon asked.

Sana shook from the weight of the question. _Well, what you seemed to have the potential to be was attractive._ _That potential being this, now._ Sana kept her knees together as Nayeon lowered her face. Sana waited patiently.

When their mouths touched, it was like Nayeon was trying to remember for a second. And then when she did, and registered that she had indeed felt this before, she sunk into the kiss with abandon. She smoothed the pad of her thumb across Sana’s forehead, as if wanting to absorb as much sensory information from her surroundings as she possibly could, and her kiss grew angry. Sana tried to match her spirit, fully understanding that every emotion was justified. Nayeon couldn’t quite communicate in modern day language yet, and verbalising her experiences might be difficult, but her actions and physical responses were not really stunted at all.

“You feel… _soft_ ,” Nayeon said, coming away from the kiss but still maintaining the proximity for resuming it whenever she wanted to. “Your arms are warm.”

“Are you cold?” Sana asked belatedly; she didn’t know the hosts got cold in the labs.

“Shh,” Nayeon quieted her and kissed her soundly again.

Nayeon’s front was pressed against hers and Sana could feel Nayeon react to her involuntarily, communicating _attraction_. Sana felt like now it was she who was the amusement park ride, the vehicle through which Nayeon might understand herself more. Oddly enough she was overwhelmed but eager to be that.

Sana swept aside Nayeon’s straight dark hair. She envisioned Nayeon in clothes other than her usual robe in Shilla World. The corporate sticker of the logo for the much-talked about new park peeled off the back of her hand as she touched every place on Nayeon’s back and neck.

As Nayeon’s hands crept to the loosely tucked in hem of her blouse, Sana pushed Nayeon back slightly.

“We can’t,” Sana said firmly.

“Why not?” Nayeon asked, and an ounce of wariness and vulnerability shone through her guarded expression. “I just want to try.”

Sana sighed and placed her forehead on Nayeon’s shoulder. That line was part of her script. Nayeon was the curious nobleman’s daughter who was a lot more rogue-ish in mentality than one might expect from nobility. But that was what made her exciting to guests, Sana supposed. She hadn’t been in charge of forming Nayeon’s story in any way. She just did maintenance work and sometimes let Nayeon improvise. There were loopholes not cared for by the writing team that the hosts could better patch up on their own.

“Some other time,” Sana murmured into Nayeon’s shoulder.

“Are you going to ask me to… sleep?” Nayeon asked, boredly drawing lines with her fingertips on Sana’s back.

Sana coughed. She wasn’t sure what Nayeon thought about that command yet, whether she registered it as a command. She just knew Nayeon was aware of it and its significance to some degree. She was stuck on it.

“It’s for your own good,” Sana said, tone restrained. “It’ll hurt if you look around too much tonight. I’ll find a way soon. Before the park opens.”

Nayeon just hummed into Sana’s shoulder and hugged her, closing her eyes. Sana closed her eyes too and then delivered the command.

“Go to sleep.”

Sana sighed, feeling Nayeon’s muscles relax a little but her posture remain as it was. It was like rigor mortis. Sana felt every bit of energy leave her own body as she laid Nayeon back down onto the examination table. Nayeon was as heavy as any other adult woman, but she felt much heavier considering that she was not, for the lack of better words, pulling any of her own weight in that moment.

Sana decided to wheel her out to storage herself. It just felt horrible to leave Nayeon lying there in that room like that. She had to know where Nayeon was at all times now. She couldn’t risk Nayeon waking up to some unsuspecting body shop technician and panicking.

She picked up an additional sheet and covered Nayeon’s legs and feet too. It was a useless act, but something in her said she had to do it. She began to drag the wheeled table out of the behavioural analysis lab. She was about to make quick work of this and get into the cargo elevator, but the lights in the hallway began to turn on. Someone was here.

Sana froze. She heard voices. And in the midst of her panic she remembered. _I work here. It doesn’t seem like anything is out of the ordinary here. Be calm. Breathe. Explain yourself calmly._

When they rounded the corner, both parties froze in their steps.

It was behavioural technician Mina in one of her usual crisp work outfits, but she was holding onto the elbow of someone who didn’t belong here. Someone who didn’t belong in a hallway of the labs, and someone who didn’t belong in this section of labs anyway. It was one of the maikos from Shogun World, but she was dressed in a simple blouse and pants. Sana glared at them in the middle of the hallway. The only question to be asked was - how far down the line were they?

“I’m just-” Mina started. “It’s not-”

“When?” Sana asked. “Just tell me when.”

For a moment, neither host nor human (or neither person, really) understood Sana until Sana gestured to the 'sleeping' host on the wheeled table.

"How long since it began?"

“One year ago,” the host said for herself, eyes riveted to Nayeon's motionless body; she was looking at herself from outside herself.

Sana’s breath trembled as it left her mouth. It was both from how long getting to just that might take and also from noticing instantly how conscious the maiko, _Momo_ , was. She had a sense of real time. Or at least the time from the reality Sana and Mina inhabited. She was able to run on this time _and_ remember how much time had passed. Perhaps even the events associated with the time that passed.

“Good to know,” Sana said, and then turned back around to start wheeling Nayeon in the right direction. "Go on, then."

Sana faced the pair in the hallway from the chamber of the cargo elevator. They held each other’s hand. Sana shut her eyes as the doors closed and moved to feel the cold skin on the metal table again. How far down the line were _they_?

**Author's Note:**

> Yup that's the end it's not a series. It's not tagged with MiMo because they're just background that gives context and significance to the SaNayeon story.


End file.
